She could have taken him anywhere: in the throat, the heart, or even the eye. Instead, she stabbed the man in the shoulder, stealing the strength from his sword arm. She didn't drive Defender right through his arm, though she could have, but rather found her balance at once and retreated two steps. The scimitar continued its stroke, but with no energy or strength behind it, and Pony rolled Defender over and under the blade, taking the weapon cleanly from the warrior.
He stood staring at her incredulously, clutching his bleeding shoulder.
Pony offered a quick salute, turned, and ran.
But not very far, for coming at her the other way was another Behrenese warrior. Pony skidded to a stop and glanced side to side, then nervously back at the first attacker, who was stubbornly retrieving his scimitar with his left hand. She wasn't worried about whether she could defeat this new foe or finish the one behind her, but settling any fight without sending one of them to his death over the cliff would not be easy. And whatever else might happen up here, she had no intention of killing either of these men —men, she knew, who were merely trying to defend their families.
She leaped to the side, grabbing the top of the fence —which groaned precariously and seemed as if it would tumble over the cliff with her—and scrambling fast to pull herself to the other side, before the second attacker's scimitar caught up to her. Now she was in the open. She thought that alone might provide her protection from the Behrenese, but this was a little-inhabited section of Palmaris, filled mostly with empty buildings. The southerners were intent, it seemed, on protecting their secrecy and security. A third warrior came into view, darting behind a nearby building, and then she spotted another, coming from the other direction, the south, moving cautiously but determinedly through the shadows at the base of the city wall.
Pony muttered a curse under her breath, her free hand going for her hidden pocket filled with the gemstones. She could get out of this predicament using those stones, she believed. She could call upon the hematite to possess one of the attackers, perhaps, and use the man as her mouthpiece to distract the others. Or she could take a more straightforward approach and use her graphite to issue a stunning lightning blast at the group closing around her, leaving her free to run away. Or malachite, perhaps, to levitate out of reach, to find the top of a building and run along the rooftops.
But using the stones carried its own risk, Pony knew, and she reminded herself that these men were not her enemies and that those she might attract by using the gemstones were.
She came to an alley a moment later, glancing back just long enough to see both attackers climbing over the fence. She muttered another curse and moved along cautiously, but she sensed that her flight was at its end, that still more warriors were all around her.
Two Behrenese stepped across the far exit of the alley; another pair blocked the one side exit. She heard a shuffle above her and yet another group, three this time, peered at her from the roof. Without a word, the four on the ground approached; one from the roof dropped lightly to the ground, barely ten feet behind her.
Pony's hand clutched the graphite. It would be so easy, she knew, and yet she understood, too, that she would be walking a fine line, that she would have to release enough energy to stun the men but not enough to kill them. She couldn't be sure.
"I am not your enemy," she started to say, but was cut short as the man behind her charged in suddenly, curved blade slashing.
Pony stepped outside the reach of the cut, then parried the blow downward banging the man's blade against the building wall. Then she turned and stepped forward, lifting her elbow to smack the man in the face twice. As he staggered back, Pony drove her knee against his elbow, pinning it and his weapon against the wall. A downward punch with Defender's pommel broke the man's grasp on his scimitar, the blade falling to the ground.
Still moving fluidly, Pony cupped the man's chin with her free hand and pulled his head back, sliding Defender into a killing position across his throat. She pulled the man so that his back was against the wall, his predicament clear to his companions. Pony eyed the approaching warriors, hoping, that the sight of their helpless companion would keep them at bay.
They did slow, for a moment, then began calling to one another in their own language. Then, obviously willing to let this comrade be sacrificed, they came on once more.
A thousand fears whirled through Pony's mind. Fears that she would have to kill these men. Fears for her unborn child —could she allow these warriors to kill her when Elbryan's child's life was also at stake? Fears that her only option seemed to be the gemstones, and that could bring a deeper darkness down upon them all—upon her and her innocent child and upon the innocent Behrenese, people simply trying to survive.
A long and confusing, horrible moment. In the end, with the approaching soldiers showing no signs of hesitating, Pony had to remind herself that these were not evil men.
She jumped back from her prisoner, glanced both ways, and threw her sword to the ground. "I am not your enemy," she stated firmly.
The man she had wounded on the cliff face called out something, and then Pony was tackled from above, taken down by a second soldier leaping from the rooftop. She hit the ground hard, all the breath blasting from her body, and managed to roll over just in time to see a scimitar descending toward her face.
Her last thoughts were for her unborn child.
CHAPTER 18
Queen Vivian's Garden
The tall black-skinned man yelled angrily at King Danube as they came into view around the corner of a great flowering bush in the magnificent garden behind Ursal castle.
Not a good sign, Abbot Je'howith knew. The Behrenese ambassador must be outraged, and that outrage had to be justified for King Danube to accept such treatment.
"I will find a baron who despises your Church as much as I do," Duke Targon Bree Kalas promised, leaning over to whisper in the abbot's ear.
"And I will show you a God who will remind you of those words when your feeble mortal coil rots in the ground," the old abbot replied quietly.
Duke Kalas, so young and strong and full of life, only laughed at that notion, but if Je'howith's threats did little to unnerve young Kalas, the Duke's mocking did not ruffle the aged priest in the least. Je'howith looked at him with absolute calm, offering silent assurances to the man that he would learn better as the years passed by, as his bones began to ache with every coming storm and he found his breath harder to catch after a lawn game, a ride, or even a walk in the garden.
Kalas read the smug abbot's thoughts clearly, and his laughter abruptly stopped, smile turning into a frown. "Yes, a God," he said, "your God —the all-powerful being who could not save Queen Vivian. Or was it, perhaps, the failure of the frail vessel your God chose to utilize in that pitiful attempt?"
Now it was Je'howith's turn to frown, for Kalas' remarks cut quite deep, especially here in the garden Queen Vivian had designed, the garden that King Danube walked every morning in tribute to his lost wife. They had been so young and full of life then, the King and Queen of Honce-the-Bear. Danube had been barely into his twenties, dashing and strong, and Vivian but seventeen, a sweet and beautiful flower, with raven hair that hung to her waist, mysterious gray eyes that called to the souls of all who gazed into them, and skin as bright as the petals of the white roses climbing around the castle's garden door. All the kingdom loved them, and all the world seemed theirs.
But then Vivian had been touched by the sweating sickness, a swift, rare killer. On the morning of that fateful day nearly twenty years before, walking in this garden, she had complained of a headache. By noon, she had taken to her bed with a slight fever. And by supper, when Je'howith had at last arrived to relieve her discomfort, she was delirious, her pale body lathered in sweat. The abbot worked furiously at her bedside and called for the most powerful stone users of St. Honce to join him.
Queen Vivian had died before the other monks arrived.
King Danube had not blamed Je'howith; indeed
he had thanked the old abbot repeatedly for his heroic efforts. In fact, many of the court advisers had remarked often about how gracious King Danube had been in those days following Vivian's death. But Je'howith, who had spent many hours with the couple and who had performed the ceremony of their marriage, had never been convinced that Danube's love for Vivian had run deep, despite these daily walks in the garden. More likely, the abbot thought, the walks were more for Danube's own pleasure than out of respect for the memory of his dead wife. The King and Queen had been happy together —outwardly blissful—but it was no secret that Danube had taken many lovers during their three years of marriage, which explained to many people how Constance Pemblebury, not of noble lineage, had risen to a position of official court adviser, and was rumored to be in line for the duchy of Entel when Duke Prescott, who had the profound misfortune of marrying six barren women—to hear him tell it—finally died.
It was rumored, and Je'howith knew that it was more than rumor, that Vivian, too, had found a bedside companion.
That man, Duke Targon Bree Kalas, had never been fond of the Abellican Church, but his sarcastic dismissals of anything Abellican had turned to open hatred toward the Church and particularly toward Je'howith the night Queen Vivian died.
"Enough of your personal feud," Constance Pemblebury commanded both of them, coming to stand between them. "Yatol Rahib Daibe himself has come to call on King Danube this morning, and his behavior this day is most disrespectful."
"A result of Palmaris," Targon Bree Kalas said, then pointedly added, "of the Church's mishandling of Palmaris."
"Enough!" Constance demanded. "You do not know that. And even if your suspicions prove true, your duty is to King Danube, to stand strong and united behind him against the Behrenese ambassador."
"Yes," Kalas agreed, eyes narrowing as he looked over at Je'howith. "One problem at a time."
The group quieted then, as Yatol Rahib Daibe stalked past, tossing them all a nasty glance, with a particularly vicious scowl aimed at the old abbot in his Abellican robes.
"Suspicions confirmed," Targon Bree Kalas muttered under his breath, and he turned to greet King Danube, who was walking toward them, shaking his head.
"Our friends of the southern kingdom are not pleased," the King informed the trio, "not at all."
"Because of the Church's actions in Palmaris," Kalas was happy to say.
"What is this persecution of the Behrenese?" King Danube asked Je'howith. "Are we at war with Behren, and if so, why was I not informed?"
"I know of no persecution," Je'howith replied, lowering his gaze respectfully.
"Now you do," King Danube loudly retorted. "It would seem that your new bishop is not fond of our dark-skinned southern neighbors and has begun a systematic persecution of them in Palmaris."
"They are not Abellican," Je'howith said, as if that was some excuse.
King Danube groaned. "But they are powerful," he replied. "Would you start a war with Behren because they are not Abellican?"
"Of course we desire no war with Behren," Je'howith said.
"Perhaps you are too stupid to understand that one action might lead to another," Targon Bree Kalas put in. "Perhaps —"
Constance Pemblebury grabbed the volatile Duke by the forearm and glowered at him so fiercely that he growled and then quieted, waving his arm dismissively at Je'howith, then stalking away.
"Behren would not go to war with us no matter the situation in Palmaris," Je'howith stated flatly. This was not the line of reasoning he wanted to take; he had no desire even to discuss the possibility that De'Unnero's rash actions might cause further trouble for the King. Even if the problems in Palmaris wouldn't lead to war, they could complicate other delicate matters.
King Danube had confided in Je'howith that he had issued a command to Duke Tetrafel, the duke of the Wilderlands. Normally, that was merely a decorative title, one of the many empty titles given to keep wealthy families happy and supportive of the Crown. But now King Danube had a plan. The King favored the strong pinto ponies of the To-gai tribesmen of western Behren. Once an independent kingdom, To-gai-ru had been conquered by the yatols a century before, and now all trade for the shaggy To-gai pintos had to go through the Chezru chieftain's court in Jacintha. Danube figured that if Tetrafel could somehow find a pass through the towering peaks of the western Belt-and-Buckle to the To-gai steppes, they could secretly work far better deals for the coveted horses.
Of course, such deals would involve substantial bribes to the ever-observant Yatol Rahib Daibe.
Still, Je'howith had to defend his Church, and remind the King that the Behrenese did not follow the same God. And he had to reassure the King that the Bishop's actions in Palmaris would lead to nothing serious, for a war with the fierce people of Behren could prove disastrous for Honce-the-Bear, especially coming so soon after the conflict with the minions of the demon dactyl.
"No, but they will likely make travel for our merchant ships difficult," King Danube replied.
"Yatol Daibe hinted at just that, wondering how our ships will fare against the numerous pirates running the coast of Behren without the Chezru chieftain's fleet protecting them. He also spoke of tariffs and other unpleasantness, including a moratorium on the trade in To-gai pintos. Has your Church gone to war against Honce-the-Bear's merchants, Abbot Je'howith? First the demands that the merchants return their gemstones —gemstones they paid your own Church dearly to acquire—and now this."
"What of the gemstones?" Targon Bree Kalas asked, returning, obviously concerned.
King Danube waved him away. "I fear that the trial has proven disastrous, Abbot Je'howith," he said.
"More time, my King," Je'howith replied, but his words seemed more like a courtesy than a heartfelt plea, as if Je'howith were speaking merely in his role in the Church and not from his true feelings. "The city is being brought under control, a necessary first step after so difficult a war."
King Danube shook his head. "Honce-the-Bear cannot afford to give more time to Bishop De'Unnero," he said.
Je'howith started to protest, but the King held up his hand and started back toward the rose-ringed door, Constance Pemblebury and Targon Bree Kalas falling in place behind him.
"A baron who despises the Church," the Duke whispered to Je'howith as he passed. "I promise." And it was no idle threat, Je'howith knew, for Palmaris fell within the boundaries of Kalas' duchy.
The sight of the old abbot sitting on the edge of the bed, his face drained of blood, his hands trembling, reassured Father Abbot Markwart, reminded him of the power of his aura. He was only a spiritual entity here in Ursal, and yet the insubstantial mist that was his spirit could evoke primal terror in one as aged and experienced as Abbot Je'howith.
What might the aura of the specter evoke in one who had not studied the history of the gemstones, one who could not bring forth the magic to any great effect? It was time for the King of Honce-the-Bear to learn the truth of power.
Through the walls went Markwart, following the directions Je'howith had given him. He passed unsuspecting soldiers with hardly a thought, then moved through the grand private chambers of the King, through the great audience hall and the private meeting rooms, through the private dining chamber and into King Danube's bedroom.
There lay the great man, fast asleep, alone in a bed that could have held five men comfortably. Such opulence did not offend Markwart; it only whetted his taste for greater riches. And they were within his reach now, he realized, as he moved a cold spectral hand to Danube's face and called softly to the King. The man stirred, grumbled something unintelligible, and tried to roll over.
But then, suddenly, the drawn face of Markwart was there, invading Danube's dreams, forcing its way into his consciousness. He came awake with a start, sitting up quickly, glancing all around, cold sweat beading his forehead.
"Who is there?" he asked.
Markwart concentrated, strengthened the magic to make his form clearer in the darkened room. "You do not know me,
King Danube Brock Ursal," the Father Abbot said, his voice as solid and strong as if his corporeal form had been in the room. "But you know of me. I am Father Abbot Markwart of the Abellican Order."
"H-how can this be?" the King stammered. "How did you get past my guards?"
Markwart was laughing before the King finished the question. As he came more awake and more aware of the truth of this specter, King Danube, too, understood the absurdity of his words. He fell back then, sliding down, grabbing the thick comforter and pulling it up higher about him.
But this was not the kind of coldness a thick comforter could defeat.
"Why are you so surprised, my King?" Markwart asked calmly. "You have witnessed the miracles of the gemstones. You are aware of their potential. Does it surprise you that I, the leader of the Church, can make such contact?"
"I have not heard of such a thing," the shaken King replied. "If you wished an audience, Abbot Je'howith could have arranged —"
"I have no time for such useless propriety," Markwart interrupted. "I wished an audience, and so I am here."
The King started to protest, speaking of protocol and courtesy, and when the spirit of Markwart remained unimpressed, he tried a different tack, threatening to call the guards.
Markwart laughed at him. "But I am not here, my King," he said. "Only in spirit have I come to you, and all the weapons of Ursal could not harm that which you see before you."
The King mustered his nerve then, and snarled at Markwart, throwing off the comforter, getting out of bed, and moving determinedly for the door. "Let us see," he stated firmly.
Out reached the specter's arm, and out went Markwart's thoughts, a barrage of commands insinuating themselves into Danube Brock Ursal's mind, compelling him to return to the bed. The man struggled, trembling as he determinedly took another step toward the door.
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